Paradigm said:

My thoughts exactly.  There's nothing wrong with seeking support outside of oneself.....
Even Karl Marx's famous quote about the "opiate of the masses" is taken out of context, and when we look at the whole quote, we see a more sympathetic sentiment:

Quote:

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

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Sounds like a rather useless institution to me.

I prefer practices that directly address the causes of suffering and outline an effective means of removing the causes for suffering, such as the heart of Buddhism.

There's no need to seek some establishment centered around an "external", nonexistant entity with symbolic practices when one can effectively manage one's life and one's mind in the first place. No sense in wasting precious energy in coping and dealing with suffering when one could act mature and effectively solve the problem.


Peace.